With the proliferation of consumer electronics, such as personal computers having document generation and media content capabilities, digital video recorders, digital cameras, digital recorders, and smart devices having image and/or sound recording features readily available to capture various content, and personal digital media players and smart devices having image and/or sound reproduction features almost omnipresent to provide playback of the various content, the instances of digital media content created by and available to users is quite large. A user may, for example, generate and store numbers of digital documents, photographs, videos, sound files, etc.
Unfortunately, however, the organizational techniques employed for storing and thus later accessing such digital media content tends to be manual and relatively simplistic. For example, a user may employ a simple hierarchical folder or directory (collectively referred to herein as folders) structure in which various digital media content is associated only through their inclusion in a same folder. The level of organizational granularity provided with respect to such folders is typically not detailed (e.g., “my trip to Europe”, “work documents”, “videos”, etc.). Implementing a fine level of granularity for content organizational structure using such folders is often not practical, requiring significant time to navigate the hierarchical folders and to manually sort the content. Moreover, such organizational structures are static, leaving the content in the folders, and thus associated with the other content of the particular folder, unless and until the user takes steps to manually reorganize the folders.
Accordingly, the use of such digital media content is often not fulfilling and generally diminishes with time. For example, the time required to access content of interest is sometimes impractical, and even more so with the passage of time. With the stagnant nature of the content and its organization, the user often loses interest in the content as time goes on. Moreover, the lack of spontaneity in current data and media retrieval technologies produces a barrier to entry for personal content enjoyment for the end-user.
Various data aggregators have been developed to deliver external content (e.g., content from sources other than the user and the user's devices), such as commercially produced news and information. Such data aggregators merely provide external content based upon key words, phrases, and other search criteria established by the user or on the user's behalf. The content aggregated by the data aggregators is not associated with the user's own digital media content and does nothing to improve or otherwise supplement the user's experience with respect to their own digital media content.